During my periodic check of Northeastern University’s College Structure Initiative webpage (http://www.northeastern.edu/collegestructure/), I discovered that the university has launched interim websites for the three new colleges. After perusing the three websites, I came to realize a rather glaring contradiction between Northeastern’s description of these sites and my own assessment. According to Northeastern, “these sites illustrate a distinctive character already taking shape for each of the new colleges.” A closer comparison indicates that the layouts and design of these sites are identical, not distinctive. What the creation of these “cookie-cutter” sites actually illustrates is the administration’s signature approach of success by replication, whereby the ideas and programs of other, more successful, institutions are duplicated and established here, at Northeastern, in hopes of attaining a higher ranking.
Further examination of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities site offered a listing of individual departments, schools and programs (http://www.northeastern.edu/cssh/departments/index.html). Here, I found that each entities’ webpage has its own unique look and feel, except, of course, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. In a rather schizophrenic display, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice’s website hyperlinks to the old College of Criminal Justice’s webpage. So, after a “ten-month process”, what are we, a college or a school?
Northeastern will undoubtedly make the argument that the word “interim” affords administrators the discretion to update these sites at any time. But why release these sites in their current, interim form at all? With four entire months until the changeover, the university should have waited until the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice had its own, unique site. Instead, Northeastern chose to continue its predictable campaign of obfuscation.

– Enzo Yaksic is a 2005 Northeastern graduate.